1B. THE VIMY RIDGE 90th ANNIVERSARY VISIT
..in conjunction with The Princess of Wales Own Regiment
April 2007 marks the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, and as fate would have it, the 90th Anniversary falls on Easter Monday, as did the original attack.And you have a chance to be there, on Vimy Ridge, on Easter Monday, April 9th 2007, to be a part of history.
The Princess of Wales Own Regiment (PWOR) is planning a private trip to France in April 2007, to be part of the Vimy Ridge 90th Anniversary ceremony, and also to visit a number of World War One battlefields and their memorials.This is because the PWOR perpetuates the 21st Battalion, which fought as part of the second Canadian Division during the Battle of Vimy Ridge.Many brave souls left our Armouries in Kingston 90 years ago, and did not return.
So this year we will honour them by making the same trip, from Kingston to Vimy, to learn about what they went through, to see their battlefields with our own eyes, to remember their sacrifice, and to be a part of history.
And the PWOR is inviting those who are interested to join us in this historic trip.
THE JOURNEY !
DAY 1: Saturday 7 April 2007:
We will be departing on Saturday April 7th 2007, the day after Good Friday. This means that each person attending the trip will still get to spend Good Friday with their families before departing for France. Buses will be leaving from Kingston on April 7th to take us to Montreal were we will catch an overnight Air France flight to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, arriving in the morning of the 8th of April 2007. There are two travel groups departing Kingston for your convenience the first group departs by bus at noon, and flies out of Montreal at supper time to arrive at Charles de Gaulle Airport in the early morning of Monday April 8th. The second group departs Kingston by bus at supper time, flying out at 11pm from Montreal, and arriving later in the morning at Charles de Gaulle.
DAY 2: Sunday 8 April 2007:
From the airport the first group will travel by bus North to Arras. Arras is the French city that was martyred during the First World War, and which was finally free from the constant threat of German attack once the Canadians captured Vimy Ridge nearby. Once in Arras we will check in to the Holiday Inn and shortly after depart for a tour of one of the major French National Memorials and Cemeteries; the chapel and lighthouse tower at Notre Dame de Lorette which dominate the ridge for which the French fought a long and bloody battle in WWI. The hilltop provides a brilliant view of Vimy Ridge itself and the approach to the German lines. Next we will move to the Vimy Ridge Memorial site where we will be given a guided tour of the memorial, the Grange Subway tunnel, and the preserved trenches. The coach will then return to the hotel for the evening. The second group will land later on Sunday morning and will proceed directly to Notre Dame de Lorette and the Vimy Memorial for their tour and will check in to the Holiday Inn in Arras following the tours.
DAY 3: Monday 9 April 2007 (Easter Monday):
Dress of the day for serving CF members will be DEU with medals. After breakfast, our coaches will take both chalks from the hotel to attend the 90th Anniversary Vimy Memorial Parade at the Vimy Memorial in the morning. Canada is providing a national contingent which will be on parade. Following the parade, we will stop briefly at the hotel to change into civilian attire and then will spend the rest of the day touring the battlefields between Arras and Cambrai, battles that took place during the last 100 days of the war. At Dury Mill, 16 kilometres southeast of Arras, we will tour the Canadian Dury Memorial which preserves in stone the memory of hard-fought actions to break the Drocourt-Quéant Line. We will also tour Canal du Nord, where on 27 September, 1918, the day after the Meuse-Argonne offensive began, Allied forces attacked the German frontline at the Canal du Nord. The marshlands on either side of the Arras-Cambrai road and the high German position, made it the most difficult sector of the Hindenburg Line to attack, and it was the Canadians who were chosen to spearhead the attack. We will also visit Cambrai, the site of the battle in the fall of 1917 (the first effective tank attack in history) Before returning to our hotel in Arras for the evening we will spend some time in Cambrais town square, which the Canadian Corps found abandoned by German troops after murderous fighting on the Western outskirts of the town the previous day.
DAY 4: Tuesday 10 April 2007:
We will start the day at Beaumont-Hamel Nfld Memorial, site of the valiant but bloody advance on the 1st day of the battle of the Somme on July 1st 1916. Here the 1st Battalion of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment was decimated. The memorial Caribou standing atop a pile of granite rock brought over from Newfoundland, is a striking tribute to the men of the regiment. The site also preserves the original trenchlines from the war, one of only three such examples remaining on the Western front. Next we will move to Thiepval , the largest British war memorial in the world. The memorial contains the names of 73,357 British and South African men who have no known grave and who fell on the Somme between July 1916 and 20 March 1918. We will move on towards the town of Albert stopping at the Lochnagar Crater en route. The crater receives around 75,000 visitors a year and is one of the most popular sites on the Western Front. The crater itself was caused by two charges of ammonal, of 24,000lb and 30,000lb. It was blown along with 16 others at 0728h on the morning of 1 July 1916 as a two-minute precursor to the start of the offensive. Once in Albert we will visit the Albert Museum, housed in the tunnels below the towns cathedral. We will then return towards Arras but before leaving the Somme valley, we will stop at Courcelette, scene of the 21st Battalions hardest fight in 1916, the seizure of the Sugar factory. The area is also home to another of the Canadian cube memorials commemorating the battle of Courcelette. After visiting some of the graves of the men of the 21st Bn, we will return to Arras for another evening.
DAY 5: Wednesday 11 April 2007:
In the morning we will check out of our hotel in Arras, and take the coaches to Ypres in Belgium. In Ypres we will check into the Novotel inside the old walls, where we spend the night. We will then walk along the Eastern ramparts of the old town, which provide a good view of the ground fought over in the June 1916 battles of Mount Sorrel. Next we will visit the Cloth Hall Museum, in the citys central square. The rest of the afternoon is devoted to exploring the old town on foot. In the evening before sunset, designated serving members will don DEUs and will form up in front of the hotel for the march to the Menin Gate Sunset Ceremony after which we will dismiss for the evening.
DAY 6: Thursday 12 April 2007:
We will check out of our hotel in Ypres that morning and visit the Canadian Monument at St. Julien, followed by the German Military Cemetary in Langemarke, the Cdn Memorial in Passchendaele, Tyn Cot Commonwealth Cemetary, the Zonnebeke Museum, Mt Sorrel and the Hill 62 Memorial and Museum, the PPCLI Monument, and the craters at St Eloi. We will then be driven back to Arras and checking into the Holiday Inn for a well deserved rest.
DAY 7: Friday 13 April 2007:
We will rise, check out of our hotel in Arras, take the coaches to Amiens where we will tour the Amiens Battlefields and Memorials. These battles are some of the least well known of the war but were some of the most audacious and successful of the Canadian Corps. They were key to repelling the gains made by the Germans in their 1918 Spring offensive which saw the allied line rolled back by as much as 50kms, thereby threatening to take the city of Amiens and with it, a near straight shot to Paris. By the afternoon we will move on to Paris. We will check into the Hotel Mercure Terminus Est, located steps away from the Gard de LEst metro and have a relaxing evening in central Paris.
DAY 8: Saturday 14 April 2007:
A whole day in Paris, unscheduled so you can sightsee according to each persons interests.
DAY 9: Sunday 15 April 2007:
Coaches will take us from the hotel to Charles de Gaulle Airport in the morning and we fly back to Montreal on Air France, arriving in the early evening. Buses will take us from Montreal to Kingston.
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